Exit polls point to Netanyahu win in Israeli election
Published:Tuesday | November 1, 2022 | 5:16 PM
JERUSALEM (AP) — Exit polls in Israel indicated Tuesday that former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies may have won enough seats to return to power in a nationalist religious government after 3 1/2 years of political gridlock.
The polls are preliminary, and final results could change as votes are tallied. Israeli media reported that a small Arab nationalist party was approaching the electoral threshold, which would give it four seats and erase Netanyahu's narrow projected margin.
It was the fifth election in less than four years in Israel, and all of them turned largely on Netanyahu's fitness to govern. Polls by three major Israeli TV stations indicated that Netanyahu and his allies would capture the 61-seat majority in parliament required to form a new government.
The polls also showed far-right lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir's Religious Zionism as the third-largest party. Ben-Gvir is a disciple of a racist rabbi who was assassinated in the 1990s and has promised a hard line against the Palestinians.
“It can flip, we don't know,” Netanyahu told supporters after the exit polls came out. “We're not dead. We're alive and kicking, possibly before a great victory, but we have to wait until the morning.”
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